Category Archives: Tech News

Disney this week announced the name of its new streaming service, said to be a direct competitor to Netflix.

I’ve been listening to The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding via Audible. Great read…or listen.

A section that really caught my attention was on naming a company, particularly when entering a new category.

According to the 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, if Disney wanted to compete with Netflix, it should have gone with a completely new name.

Instead, they went with Disney+ (Disney Plus).

This was a mistep for a couple reasons. For one, the Disney brand means a lot more to people than movies, so having a Disney Plus doesn’t really signify what the product is.

And secondly, Plus is common word, one used in recent startups like Google Plus (shut down in 2018); as well as Nike Plus; and most notably with Hulu Plus (which Hulu later dropped), another streaming service, owned by none other than The Walt Disney Company, along with 21st Century Fox (acquired by Disney), Comcast and AT&T.

Tesla added some geek art to its “patent wall” according to an @TeslaMotors Tweet on Thursday.

The Tweet comes on the heels of an announcement by CEO, and real-life Iron Man, Elon Musk that Tesla would let other manufacturers infringe on its patents in an effort to accelerate innovation in the electric-car sector.

The image is in reference to the intro screen of Zero Wing, which featured a broken-English phrase “All Your Base Are Belong to Us.” The phrase has since become an Internet meme.

Apple today confirmed its long-rumored acquisition of Beats Music and Beats Electronics for a total of $3 billion, according to a Beats press release.

It’s a three-pronged acquisition including the acqui-hire of Beats co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine; Beats subscription streaming service; and the Beats hardware.

“Music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple,” said Apple’s Tim Cook in the Beats Press Release. “That’s why we have kept investing in music and are bringing together these extraordinary teams so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world.”

“I’ve always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple,” said Jimmy Iovine. “The idea when we started the company was inspired by Apple’s unmatched ability to marry culture and technology. Apple’s deep commitment to music fans, artists, songwriters and the music industry is something special.”

Beats Music is a subscription streaming service that generates customized playlists based on a user’s musical tastes — similar to Pandora’s Music Genome Project, as well as other recommendation platforms.